Yesterday I traveled down to Columbia, South Carolina to spend the day talking with Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old on the psalms in Christian worship. My church (Christ the King) is currently working through a year long grant from CICW on the Psalms of Ascents and I wanted to hear from Dr. Old on psalms and daily prayer. A class which he is preparing to teach this spring at Erskine’s Columbia campus housed at 1st Presbyterian Church (ARP) where Sinclair Ferguson currently resides as senior minister.

I originally met Dr. Old in the context of a truly ‘convergent’ event. He was traveling into Reformed Theological Seminary-Orlando as the featured speaker for our spring series on the Lord’s Supper. It also so happened that Robber Webber was at RTS leading a one-day conference on his new book “Ancient-Future” worship. I was working in the student services office and was asked to drive Dr. Old around while he was in town and someone had the ‘brilliant’ idea of taking Dr. Old and Robbert Webber out to dinner so I got to tag along with a few other students and faculty. It was a bit of a tense dinner. Someone would ask a question about worship and then look at either Dr. Old or Robbert Webber to respond. Wish I had a tape recording of that dinner.

When I arrived for the day I was quickly ushered into a seat and thrust a hefty paperback. The biggest news of the day was that the finale volume (VII) of his opus on The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church had just arrived. As if that wasn’t enough I was shown manuscripts of a two volume work on the Lord’s Supper and a manuscript of The Christian Use of Art that is coming along nicely. Dr. Old is also re-working a little paperback that he published 20 years ago on “Praying the Bible” that I am looking forward to using in its native form until the new one is out. (If you search hard you might grab a copy on Abebooks). Great chapters on 1. Praying the Lord’s Prayer, 2. Praying in the Name of Jesus, 3. Praying the Canticles, 4. Praying the Psalms, and 5. Praying Continually: The Service of Daily Prayer.

Other topics of conversation relating to worship were:

– A story about his first student pastorate where he painted a series on the Psalms of Ascents and hung them from the pulpit as he preached each Psalm.

– Article with Reggie Kidd in the March Issue of Worship Leader magazine on the biblical terms Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

– A reminder of Johann Zwicks work as a German hymnodist and usurper of music to catechism. (nothing new under the sun!)

– The Passover psalms (113-118), or ‘Egyptian Hallel’ for use during Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday services.

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4 thoughts on “Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old”

Hi, there! Just found your blog today and noticed you cited Hughes Oliphant Old! Thought you might be interested in a brand new Pre-Publication offeroffer from Logos Bible Software: The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (7 Vols.). Let me know if you’d like any more information or if you’d like to help spread the word about Old’s important work!

I love Dr. Old. I took his class on Baptism in the Reformed Tradition at Princeton Seminary when I was trying to figure out if I could really embrace covenant baptism as opposed to believer’s baptism. He invited me to walk with him once a week after class, where I peppered him with questions. He very graciously responded to all my questions and helped me to understand. Because of him, I was able to move forward in what has turned out to be a wonderful call of God in my life.

Hi, I knew Scotti from 1979 – 1983 when he pastored the PCUSA church in West Lafayette, Indiana. My, then fiance, now husband, and I were students at Purdue University. Scotti taught us SO MUCH about the Word of God – both written, and in the person of Jesus Christ. I recognize the great respect which everyone holds for him, but to me and my husband, he was more of a friend. I helped him purchase the food for the first party to which he invited his (now) wife. He performed my wedding, and my husband and I were both part of his wedding to Mary. We were married 2 weeks apart in 1982! My husband is a lay leader in our current church, and planning to teach on the Psalms next fall in Sunday School. I’m looking for the pamphlet Scotti wrote on Praying the Psalms back in the early 1980’s. I think I have a copy somewhere… But he was/is a wonderful man and I still miss him after all these years.